[2][3] Boddy's career was called, by Art Berman of the Los Angeles Times, a "classic example of the self-made man, with his early years marked by poverty."

Boddy's university years were interspersed with periods of working as a "door-to-door flatiron salesman, ditch digger, janitor and miner.

[2] He was said to have resembled the actor Adolphe Menjou, and Time said much later that he was "High-voiced, quick-moving, affable, ... an efficient horseman, pistol shot and fisherman.

[2] For fifty dollars, he purchased an unsuccessful publication called Smiles and persuaded the Commercial Board of Los Angeles to take the magazine as its house organ, thereby establishing himself as a publisher.

[3] In 1926, Boddy was hired as editor of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, a failing newspaper originally founded by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr.

He quickly earned the enmity of Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis, who attempted to silence the News by arresting Boddy.

Davis used an obscure municipal law that made it illegal to publish horse-racing entries and results in a general circulation newspaper.

Whether or not the operation actually took place, the story became the basis of the 1950 Hollywood film Malaya, in which the character "John Manchester," portrayed by Lionel Barrymore, was based on Boddy.

Boddy's editorial policies in these early years established the Daily News as the city's only liberal journalistic voice.

[4] Boddy spent less and less time at the newspaper as he focused his energies on his estate, Descanso Gardens, in La Cañada, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

[citation needed] Boddy named his estate in La Cañada as Rancho de Descanso, which translates as "Ranch of Restfulness (or Repose)."

For the 1950 Senate race, Boddy offered no specific reasons why he was running for office other than to say it was a "challenge" and he would meet interesting people.

He received an important endorsement from Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, a Republican, and also got strong support from labor unions.

[4] In May 1950, just weeks before the primary election, Boddy labeled Douglas the "Pink Lady" by implying that she was aligned with Communists and was part of a group of "red hots" trying to seize control of Democratic county committees in the state.

Boddy came up with the idea of comparing Douglas's voting record to that of leftist New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio of the American Labor Party—a tactic that was seized on by Nixon and his campaign manager, Murray Chotiner, in the general election.